ISLAMABAD: The ruling coalition partners exchanged increasingly sharp public rebukes on Thursday over local government elections, with the Pakistan Peoples Party announcing that Sindh province would hold polls in 2027 and challenging its federal ally, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, to do the same in Punjab and Islamabad within 90 days.
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Pakistan says its quiet diplomacy in US-Iran conflict has elevated its global standing
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign minister said on Thursday that Islamabad’s role in brokering a ceasefire between the United States and Iran had fundamentally transformed its international standing, describing the country as a newly recognised “middle power and net security provider” with ambitions to become an economic force.
Minor girl, 3, found raped and killed in sack outside family home; relatives among suspects
KARACHI: Police have taken DNA samples from 12 suspects, including relatives of the victim, as they investigate the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl whose body was found stuffed in a sack outside her home in Karachi, officials said on Thursday.
PTI rejects PM Sharif’s election legitimacy defence, calls for judicial scrutiny of 2024 vote
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s main opposition party on Wednesday sharply rejected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s defence of his government’s electoral legitimacy, accusing him of implicitly conceding that the February 2024 general elections were fraudulent, and called for a judicially supervised audit of the vote.
French climber dies in K-6 avalanche; two teammates survive
ISLAMABAD: A French climber died after an avalanche struck a three-member international team attempting to scale K-6, a 7,282-metre peak in Pakistan’s remote northern Karakoram range, a tour operator said on Wednesday, the latest fatality to hit the country’s high-altitude climbing season.
Barclays upgrades Pakistan dollar bonds to overweight, cites resilient external position
ISLAMABAD: Barclays has upgraded Pakistan’s dollar bonds to overweight, reversing a downgrade it issued in May, as the British bank pointed to improving oil market dynamics and what it described as an increasingly resilient external position, according to a research note cited by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Armed men abduct eight police, including bomb squad officers, in South Waziristan
PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen ambushed and abducted eight police officers in Pakistan’s Upper South Waziristan district on Wednesday, seizing them as they returned from a bomb disposal mission in one of the country’s most volatile tribal regions, officials said.
Coalition partners demand apology, defence minister’s resignation over Kashmir identity slur
ISLAMABAD: The governing coalition showed rare public signs of strain on Wednesday as the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party demanded to know why a senior federal minister remained in his post after asserting that residents of the protest-hit Azad Jammu and Kashmir town of Rawalakot were not Kashmiris — remarks that also drew condemnation from a major religious party and a formal apology from a former prime minister on the minister’s behalf.
Pakistan-Iran ties deepen after Pezeshkian visit, but sanctions keep flagship projects on hold
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Wednesday that progress on a major gas pipeline and other economic ventures with Iran will move no faster than the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran, tempering expectations that a landmark visit by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian this week would quickly translate into concrete commercial gains.
Pakistan, Qatar vow to sustain US-Iran peace momentum as Hormuz diplomacy fans out across Gulf
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke by telephone on Wednesday and expressed satisfaction on the opening round of US-Iran technical negotiations, pledging to sustain diplomatic momentum as the two co-mediating nations prepared to rejoin talks in Switzerland that are expected to resume early next week.